The top floor of the house was dark except for the light shining from a door on the left, which was open a few inches. It was the guest bedroom that Jude had picked out for himself, facing towards the sea. He was sitting on the bed, silent and still. All Ben could see of him through the gap in the door was his foot and part of his leg. He was still dressed and wearing his shoes.
‘Good night,’ Ben said quietly outside the doorway.
No reply. Ben tapped lightly on the door. ‘See you in the morning.’ When there was still no response from inside, he pushed open the door. ‘Jude? Are you all right?’
Jude looked up as Ben appeared in the doorway. His face was tight and pale.
Ben stared back at him, realising that something was wrong.
And felt the blood rapidly drain out of his body into his feet.
Propped up beside the bed, next to Jude’s own rucksack, was his green canvas bag. Jude had brought it in from the car.
And in Jude’s hands was the small sheet of sky-blue paper, creased in the middle, that Ben had been keeping hidden in there. Michaela’s letter.
Ben didn’t move, or step forward to snatch it from him, or say ‘Give me that’. It was too late. Jude knew.
‘I thought I recognised her writing,’ Jude said quietly. ‘In Jerusalem. I pretended I hadn’t noticed what you were reading. Wanted to take another look ever since.’
Ben didn’t know what to say.
‘Were you ever going to tell me?’ Jude asked.
‘No,’ Ben replied. ‘I wasn’t ever going to tell you.’
‘Then you should have just burned this.’
‘I couldn’t,’ Ben said. Anger welled up inside him. Why hadn’t he had the courage to destroy it? It was stupid and sentimental and selfish to have kept it and risked letting Jude find it.
‘You’ve all lied to me,’ Jude muttered. The letter was fluttering slightly in his hands.
‘I know it looks bad. But they thought it was for the best.’
‘For the best! To believe in a lie, for all these years?
‘It’s been a shock for me too,’ Ben said. ‘I didn’t read it until we were in France. I had no idea until then. You have to believe me, Jude.’
‘You and my mum — ’
‘It was a long time ago. We were young. These things happen.’
‘And he knew about it all along?’ Jude said, seething with anger.
‘Simeon?’
‘What kind of man would do that? Pretend to be the father of another man’s kid?’
‘The best kind,’ Ben said. ‘He loved you. You couldn’t have asked for a better father.’
‘Except he wasn’t, was he?’ Jude said bitterly. ‘He was a liar and a fraud. So much for the good upstanding vicar, the great Christian with all his high-and-mighty fucking morals.’
Ben stepped forward. ‘Jude-’
‘Get the fuck away from me. You’re not my father. I’ll never see you that way.’
‘I don’t expect you to. I don’t even know how to be a father.’
Jude leaped up from the bed, red-faced. He scrunched the letter into a tight ball and clenched it in his fist. ‘This is bullshit!’ he yelled. Grabbing his rucksack off the floor, he slung it violently over his shoulder and started pushing his way past Ben towards the door.
‘Where are you going?’
‘As far away from you as possible.’
‘You’re on an island,’ Ben said. ‘You can’t go anywhere.’
‘I’ll swim home if I have to. What do you care, anyway?’
‘Hey. Come on. Don’t act this way. We can talk about it.’
‘Fuck you, Dad.’
‘I’m not your dad,’ Ben said, trying to restrain his rising temper. ‘Simeon Arundel was, is, your dad, and you should be proud to say so. The rest counts for nothing. Jude! Come back!’
But Jude wasn’t listening. He stormed out onto the landing and started running down the stairs. Ben raced out after him. He stopped at the top of the stairs, gripping the banister rail. ‘Oh, shit,’ he groaned to himself, scarcely able to believe this was happening. It was all his fault. He should never have let Jude see the letter.
But recriminations and self-blame could wait for now. After a moment’s hesitation, he plunged down the stairs after Jude. As he reached the bottom, the front door was swinging on its hinges. He flicked on a side-lamp in the entrance hall, burst outside onto the terrace and saw Jude dashing away up the beach, a rapidly disappearing running figure silhouetted against the dark sand.
Ben was about to give chase, just as he’d done back on Bodmin Moor. But then he held himself back and gave it more thought. Was it a mistake to let Jude run off like this? Or would it be an even bigger mistake to follow him and try to work things through together? Should he give him space, or rein him in?
Jude was gone now, vanished into the darkness.
Ben suddenly realised what he was dealing with. It was a parenting problem. Most parents were faced with choices and dilemmas every day bringing up their kids, and only by learning from their mistakes could they have any chance of making the right decisions. Sometimes they did, sometimes not, but after eighteen or twenty years they had at least some kind of experience to guide them through the ever-changing minefield.
Ben had none at all. He’d been thrown into the deep end with no idea of how to swim. He simply didn’t know how to deal with such a situation.
But then it hit him that he knew someone who was very well equipped to deal with it. Brooke hadn’t yet experienced motherhood herself, but she was wise in these things and her background in psychology was about as extensive as you could get. It was what had earned her her PhD., Ben figured, so she must be able to help him here.
Besides, he felt so alone and isolated that he’d have wanted to talk to her anyway. He knew that, deep down.
Remembering the card she’d given him with her new number on, he quickly dug out his wallet and found it. His phone was in his jeans pocket. As he dialled the number, he counted back the gap between the time zones. It’d be early morning in London. Brooke would still be in bed.
He imagined her lying there in her bedroom in Richmond, her hair spread out on the pillow. Maybe she’d be wearing those faded yellow pyjamas she liked, with a picture of Snoopy across the top and a dialogue bubble that said ‘I love you’. It would be good to hear her voice, even at a moment like this.
But then he had another thought as the dial tone sounded in his ear, and it wasn’t a pleasant one. What if Brooke wasn’t alone? What if she had company — male company — the kind Ben didn’t want to think about? How would she react to her ex calling out of the blue at this time?
Ben almost aborted the call, but then hung on in nervous anticipation. He turned back towards the house as the dial tone went on ringing. Stepped inside the hallway, trying to marshal his thoughts and figure out where to begin.
A second later, Brooke replied. ‘Hello?’ Her voice sounded sleepy. It sounded nice. ‘Who is it? Hello?’
But Ben didn’t reply. He could hear her voice coming from the receiver, but he said nothing and slowly lowered the phone to his side. With his thumb he pressed the button to end the call.
Because the hallway was suddenly filled with masked men in black. Six of them. Six automatic weapons pointed right at him.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Wesley Holland’s island refuge hadn’t been safe at all. The enemy had wasted very little time in catching up with them, and now Ben was in real trouble.
The six gunmen were almost certainly a pair of three-man teams who’d approached the house by stealth from different angles and entered by different routes to converge in the middle. Ben didn’t say a word. There was nothing to say, no point asking ‘Who are you?’ or ‘What do you want?’ He let the phone drop from his hand and raised his arms shoulder-high as he backed away a step.
His mind was trained to work fast in these situations, and he already had a plan. The lamp he’d turned on a mom
ent earlier was the only light in the hallway. The sideboard on which it stood was just two steps to his right. One swift movement, and he could smash the lamp to the floor, plunging the hallway into darkness. The couple of seconds’ confusion might buy him enough time to disarm one of the team and let loose four or five rounds before tumbling out of the door onto the terrace. He’d have to move fast, but if he didn’t take a bullet in the process it was just about feasible.
But even some of the best plans didn’t survive long in a real-life confrontation. The men immediately circled Ben as he backed away, two of them slipping around his right flank to block off his access to the lamp. The eyes in the ski masks all watched him intently, as if the men all knew exactly who he was and had been instructed to take no chances. Fingers were on triggers, safeties set to ‘FIRE’. Ben was pretty certain that if he made a single abrupt move, they’d gun him down where he stood.
‘Grab him and cuff him,’ said one. Every team had a leader. He was it. Two men stepped closer, one from the left, one from the right, still keeping their pistols trained on him.
The team leader spoke into a tiny radio mike on his collar. ‘Target acquired. Move in.’ Almost instantly, Ben heard the thump of a helicopter approaching.
The man on Ben’s left produced a thick plastic cable tie, the kind that police and military forces used to secure prisoners’ wrists behind their backs. He pressed the muzzle of his pistol against Ben’s head and took a hold of Ben’s arm. His movements were slick and practised. The operation was being executed with perfect efficiency and control.
Then, suddenly, it wasn’t. Ben had seen a hundred military exercises fall apart in the blink of an eye when an unplanned-for factor seemed to leap out of nowhere and blew everything to hell. Control could evaporate into chaos within a second, and it was when tensions were running at their highest that even the smallest surprise incident could set it off.
That factor was Wesley Holland. He came bursting out from the darkness at the top of the stairs, in slippers and a dressing gown. ‘What the hell’s going on down here?’ He was clutching the ancient sword, as if he’d half expected trouble and had been keeping it by the side of the bed. He froze at the sight of the armed intruders in the hallway.
Several weapons spun around to point up the stairwell towards the billionaire, who gaped down the stairs at them for a split second and then turned to bolt back the other way.
A lot of things happened in the next few instants.
The man at Ben’s left was momentarily distracted — long enough that he didn’t see the elbow coming for his face. Ben cupped his left fist in the palm of his right hand and drove back hard, using the rotation of his legs, back and abdominal muscles to put every ounce of savage power he could into the strike. The point of his elbow delivered a windpipe-crushing blow to the base of the guy’s throat. Even before he’d slammed against the wall, his face already turning blue, Ben had twisted the pistol out of his hand and was bringing it to bear on the others.
Meanwhile, the hallway erupted with gunfire as three of the gunmen opened fire on the escaping Wesley. One bullet splintered the banister rail next to him; one passed by his ear; the third passed through the muscle of his left calf. He cried out and fell backwards.
Holding his pistol in a rigid two-handed grip, Ben swivelled it to point at the nearest man standing and let off a double-tap to the chest. The rule in close-quarter pistol combat was to aim for centre of mass and never let the gun stay still. Before the man had crumpled to the floor, Ben’s sights were already moving on, instinctively picking out the target that was the greatest threat to him.
Wesley Holland had lost his balance as his injured leg gave way under him, and now came tumbling backwards down the stairs, still clutching the sword.
The four remaining guns were turning back towards Ben. It was the quickest mover that Ben homed in on. His trigger finger flicked twice and rattled off two more rapid rounds. A scream. Blood sprayed vertically up the wall and the guy’s weapon dropped out of his hands.
The thick of the gunfight lasted only a short instant, but with his heart and brain running on pure adrenaline it felt to Ben like a full minute. The exchange of shots was almost a continual deafening roar in the confined space. Empty shell cases spilled and bounced across the floor. The stink of cordite filled the air. In the chaos Ben saw the team leader’s pistol muzzle line up on his head and knew he couldn’t react fast enough. But before the man could shoot, Wesley Holland’s tumbling body had crashed to the bottom step and hit him from behind in the legs, knocking him off-line and sending the shot wide.
A bullet from another gun seared past Ben’s face and plaster exploded from the wall. He returned fire. The pistol he’d taken was a high-capacity Walther, good for at least another eight shots before he ran dry. But he’d no intention of holding his ground in a protracted stand-up gunfight against three determined assailants.
He wasn’t that eager to find out if there really was a heaven up there.
He crashed the front door open with his shoulder. Threw himself out of the doorway and rolled on his back onto the dark terrace, firing wildly as he flipped up on his feet and ducked away from the doorway.
The helicopter was coming in fast, hovering fifty feet above the beach, The white-blue glare of its halogen spotlamps was blinding, forcing Ben to shield his eyes as he ran along the terrace parallel with the wall of the house; he stumbled in the glare and almost fell on his face, and it probably saved his life. A blast of automatic fire rang out from the chopper and raked the house where his head had been an instant earlier. Splinters of white wood flew. A window burst apart, raining glass everywhere.
Ben hurdled the terrace railing with high-velocity bullets zipping overhead and smacking into the wall right behind him. He landed with a grunt on soft sand, fell to his knees, scrambled up again and began to sprint hard towards the dunes at the side of the house. The chopper descended closer towards the beach, its downdraught whipping up a sandstorm.
Then Ben was among the dunes, leaping from one to another, trying to escape the glaring beam of the chopper’s spotlight and find cover among the long, black shadows that it threw for a hundred yards across the beach. His heart was pounding. He wondered what was happening to Wesley, and felt bad that he couldn’t go back to help the guy. Then he wondered where Jude was, and hoped he was far away by now.
The team leader and his remaining gunmen had emerged from the front of the house and were running across the beach. Voices shouted. Several more men leaped down from the landing chopper to join them. Ben halted for a second in the reedy gully between two high dunes, to check his pistol. Just four rounds left in the magazine, plus the one still in the chamber. Not enough against so many men.
And then the odds worsened. Two dark shapes came roaring in on the water, heading in a twin arc of white foam towards the beach. RIBs, rigid inflatables. Ben couldn’t make out how many occupants were aboard the outboard craft, but at least six more black-clad figures disembarked as they came sliding up the wet sand. The glare of the helicopter lights picked out the gleam of their weapons.
Ben slammed the magazine back into his pistol and scrambled to the top of the dune, crackling through the reeds. If he could slither down its far side unnoticed, there was a chance he could make it to the Jeep. The key was-
Shit. Jude had the key.
Ben suddenly felt very cold. But as he crawled to the top of the dune, he saw that having the key would have done him little good anyway. The Jeep was being guarded by three men.
Then he had to try to find some other way out of here. He half-slid, half-rolled down the soft sand of the dune and started desperately searching for another escape route. The voices of his pursuers were getting louder, and coming from different directions as they split up to search for him. The beams of flashlights darted through the long grass. He wouldn’t have been surprised to hear the baying of dogs coming after him. The enemy had taken no chances this time. It was as if they’d stepped thei
r game up a gear.
Ben turned and was suddenly blinded by searing white light. He covered his eyes with his arm. Nowhere to run. He was bathed in the glare, caught like a deer in a hunter’s lamp with enough hardware aimed at him to blow him to pieces.
A voice yelled, ‘There he is!’
Another shouted, ‘Drop the weapon!’
If he hung onto the pistol for another instant, he was dead.
He tossed it away and it hit the sand with a dull thud.
And then the racing figures were closing in all around him. ‘Fuck it,’ he said, and put up his hands.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
There was no point in trying to resist any longer as they fastened his wrists and marched him roughly across the sand to the idling chopper.
In minutes, the whole section of beach in front of the house had come alive with activity. It looked like the aftermath of a military operation. The gunmen who’d come from the sea returned to the boats, started up their motors and churned the water white as they roared away. The team leader and the remaining members of the assault team were at the chopper, talking with the air crew as the pilot readied for takeoff. They were all still wearing their ski masks. The team leader carried a large, translucent Ziploc bag, through which Ben could make out the lustre of bronze and steel.
Wesley Holland’s sword of Christ. So now the enemy had what they’d been looking for all along.
Ben could see something else, too. The sword’s blade was smeared with blood. He frowned. How had that happened? As he was led closer, he was able to pick snatches of the men’s conversation over the noise of the turbine.
‘-about the Yank?’
The team leader shook his head and motioned to the bag in his hand, and Ben heard him say, ‘He fell on it.’
Then the blood was Holland’s. Ben felt sorry. The way he saw it, the team leader had no reason to lie to one of his own people. The American must have impaled himself on the blade as he’d come tumbling down the stairs.
The Sacred Sword bh-7 Page 31
